• How to Start and Grow a Think Tank
• Grassroots Leadership Guide to K-12 Education Reform
  • Prologue
  • Decide What Type of Organization You Want to Become
  • Building and Maintaining an Effective Board
  • Get Things Up and Running
  • Legal Reference Material
  • Organize Your Staff and Volunteers
  • Examples of Programs and Operational Materials
  • Building Coalitions
  • Getting Your Message Out/Media Relations
  • Talking with Legislators
  • Raising Money
  • History of School Choice
    • Overview
    • The Case for Choice in Schooling: Restoring Parental Control of Education
  • Education Reform Research and Resources
  • Resources
• Taking Donors Seriously
• Fundraising Fundamentals

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Overview

Compiled by the Alliance for School Choice

While the school choice movement can trace its lineage to the very genesis of the United States civil society, the concept of parental choice in education began to more fully mature through the work of Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman. Just one year after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, Friedman explained a plan for student school vouchers that would enhance and diversify K-12 education across the country. Friedman's plan, and much of the scholarship that it inspired, focused on the means by which all students would have access to equal and excellent educational opportunities.

In 1990, the movement took a substantial step forward with the creation of the nation's first publicly financed urban school choice program, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program. Several similar initiatives were established in the years following, utilizing both the voucher and the tax credit model, with publicly funded and supported choice programs developing in areas such

as Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Cleveland and Ohio. With the development of these programs came the institution of multiple state-based and national organizations whose function was the protection and expansion of school choice. In 2002, the movement earned a momentous triumph with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on the constitutionality of the Cleveland scholarship program in the 2002 Zelman v. Simmons-Harris decision.

Throughout this period of tremendous growth, it became increasingly clear that the school choice movement would need to develop a national infrastructure and vision in order to achieve sustainable success. With this in mind, scholars, allies, philanthropists and activists discussed the creation of a single, national, high capacity initiative that could lead school choice into its most exciting era. After significant research and planning, on May 17, 2004 - the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education - this initiative became a reality, as the Alliance for School Choice was launched.

The Alliance is "a national nonprofit educational policy group supporting school choice programs across the country. The Alliance provides leadership experience and resources to affect meaningful reform in the educational arena."